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on a desultory and guerrilla warfare which might have 
prolonged the hopeless struggle to no good purpose. There 
are those who think the war was unnecessary, that it might 
have been avoided. I cannot bring myself so to think. The 
situation was one for which only such a convulsion as war, 
horrible as its effect was, could afford a satisfactory solution. 
This day which brings back to us the dreadful losses that the 
war entailed, and piles up the fond memories of those known 
and unknown heroes whose devotion to duty and utter self- 
sacrifice are monuments to our patriotism as a people, should 
take us out of our atmosphere of self-seeking, of moneymaking, 
of pleasure-hunting and of peaceful sloth, at least for a day, 
that we may value again highly the many instances it revives, 
of mental and physical courage, self-denial, self-restraint, and 
self-sacrifice, and may feel that the hearts of our people to-day, 
eager as they seem now in the search for wealth and comfort, 
would, should occasion arise, furnish a response to the Na- 
tion's call as full, as willing and as mighty as was the response 
from both sides from the time the struggle began in '6i until 
it closed in '65. The Civil War is the great epic of our his- 
tory ; and though full forty-two years have passed since peace 
was declared, the grateful nation is still conferring rewards on 
the brave participants of the struggle, and honoring the mem- 
ory of its dead. 

While the deepest impression Memorial Day and its ceremon- 
ies make is that of individual heroism, one still cannot forget 
the enormous effort of the whole people as a nation and the bur- 
dens they gladly assumed to maintain the national integrity and 
to excise the cancer of slavery that was eating away national 
life. The greatness of our nation in the struggle of our Civil 
War is now recognized and in the perspective of forty years, 
there is none to decry or belittle it. In the making of history in 
a republic, however, the political party struggles are so full of 
bitterness and criticism that a considerable time must elapse 
before the credit or lack of it properly to be ascribed to a free 
people for carrying out any policy can be measured. There are 
those who look to the past to find national virtue and contem- 
plate the present as a period of national degradation. They 
impeach the motives of those who guide national councils and 



in the odium politicnm are blind to the broad facts which must 
lead the impartial historian to reach a conclusion wholly at 
variance with the pessimistic view of such critics. The best 
illustration of what I am saying is in the attitude of a certain 
class of critics toward our policy in respect of the Spanish War 
and the problems which followed it. 

I ask your attention to-day, therefore, to the page of the 
nation's history covering the last nine years, with the hope 
of showing that there never has been, on the part of any coun- 
try, a greater exhibition of pure altruism than that exhibited by 
the United States from the beginning of the Spanish War down 
to the present day, toward the peoples who were immediately 
affected. As we read the history of a man or a nation, that 
which excites our admiration is courageous action for which 
no motive can be found save that of a desire to discharge a 
duty to mankind. A study of the conduct of our nation with 
respect to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, cov- 
ering now nearly a decade, ought to fill every Amer- 
ican with pride. 1 do not mean to say that there were not 
Americans who entered upon the war, or favored the Cuban or 
the Philippine policy from motives of selfishness, and with a 
hope of increasing our trade and enlarging our dominion from 
the mere love of exploitation and empire, but the great body of 
the people went into and fought out the Cuban War, assumed 
the burden of the temporary government of Cuba, and the 
more or less permanent government of Porto Rico, fought out 
the Philippine Wars and assumed the government of the 
Philippines all from a sense of duty only, and that most 
reluctantly because they could not foresee the extent of the 
burdens which we were taking up. In 1898, it is hardly 
necessary for me to recall the resistance that President oMcKin- 
ley offered to the popular movement that carried him slowly 
but surely to the point of an open conflict with Spain. That 
which the American people believed to be the oppression of the 
Cuban people, the misgovernment of that beautiful island, and 
the continued failure of Spain to restore any kind of order — 
all compelled the United States to interfere to prevent a con- 
tinuance of that which seemed to our people to be an interna- 
tional scandal at the doors of this country ; and as we went 
into it, in order that we might free ourselves from the charge 



of land-grabbing or spirit of conquest, we made the declara- 
tion that we would not retain Cuba, but would make her an 
independent Republic as soon as circumstances would permit. 
The wisdom of this self-denying declaration has often been 
questioned, and I am not prepared myself to say that it was the 
wiser course to pursue. So far as our country was concerned, 
it was. But recent events give rise to a doubt whether in our 
anxiety to make clear our own unselfish motive, we may not 
have committed ourselves to a policy not best adapted to the 
welfare of the Cubans. However that may be, it is certain that 
when it was adopted, it was adopted in what was thought to 
be the best interests of Cuba, and what was known to be in 
accordance with the unselfish desire of the American people to 
help their oppressed neighbors. 

It is true that the presence of yellow fever in Havana had 
threatened the health of this country in its southern ports, and 
that the failure of Spain to remove this persisting danger has 
been frequently cited to justify on international grounds the 
declaration of war. But we all of us know that the real ground 
for the war was the S3nnpathy that the Americans had with a 
people Struggling against an oppressive and misguided rule in 
a contest carried over many )'^ears, and which had laid waste 
one of the most beautiful islands of the world. This was what 
led us on, and he who says that it was not true altruism does 
not understand either the American people or the motives which 
guide them. 

We expended in the Cuban War upwards of $300,000,000, 
and we never have invited from Cuba the return of a single 
cent. We offered up in deaths and wounds and disease in that 
war, the lives of 148 officers and over 4,100 enlisted men. We 
paid $20,000,000 to Spain under the treaty of peace. The 
exact consideration for this sum, it may be difficult to state, 
but the result of the payment was the treaty and by that treaty 
was secured a cession of Cuba and Porto Rico and the Phil- 
ippines freed from the debts which Spain had incurred in their 
maintenance. It is not too much to say, therefore, that by this 
payment the United ^States freed the Islands from a heavy 
burden of debt which, under ordinary conditions of a transfer, 
might have followed them under American sovereignty. 



When the Spanish Army left Cuba, the country had long 
had but little governmental control, exce])t that exercised ia 
the immediate neighborhood of the troops who were about de- 
parting. The ordinary social restraints had been destroyed, 
the cities were crowded with thousands of refugees and recon- 
centradoes who were exasperated by suffering and the death of 
their families and friends, and it was deemed necessary to take 
especial precautions for the prevention of riot and bloodshed. 
The officers of the United States Army in Cuba were at once 
occupied in instituting, under the direction of the Military 
Governor, and the department commanders, a general civil ad- 
ministration for which no other governmental machinery ex- 
isted, and in aiding the existing municipal governments in the 
performance of their duties. It was necessary to furnish im- 
mediate relief for the prevailing distress among the starving 
reconcentradoes. Five million, four hundred and ninety-three 
thousand rations, at a cost of $1,500,000 to the United States 
were issued to distressed persons through the agency of the 
officers of the army. 

The condition of the soldiers of the Cuban Army who had 
been separated from any productive industry, and who upon 
the conclusion of hostilities were left substantially without 
homes or occupation, and with no pay coming to them from any 
source, required that some relief should be afforded which 
would enable them to disband and return to peaceful employ- 
ment. To facilitate this, $75 apiece was paid to each Cuban 
soldier on his bringing in and depositing his arms. In this 
way $2,550,000 were paid out of the United States Treasury, 
and upon the payment being completed, the Cuban Army separ- 
ated and ceased to exist. 

The subject of sanitation of the island, from one end to the 
other, and especially in the towns left in a filthy condition, was 
taken up with the thoroughness of the army surgeons, and in 
the course of this effort, one of the greatest and most useful 
discoveries known to medical science, to wit: the transmission 
of disease by the mosquitos, was added to the sum of human 
knowledge. For four years, this sanitation went on, and under 
American occupation the amount expended for this out of the 
Cuban Treasury reached the large sum of $10,000,000. 



Cuba, an island 44,000 square miles in area, with a popula- 
tion of 1,600,000, had enrolled in her public schools under 
Spanish control 36,306 pupils. There were practically no sepa- 
rate school buildings. The pupils were collected in the resi- 
dences of the teachers. There were few books, and no maps, 
blackboards, desks or other school apparatus. The teaching 
was of the most primitive character and was carried on under a 
fee system which excluded altogether the children of the poor. 
At the end of the first six months of American occupation, the 
public school enrollment of the island numbered 143,000, and 
this was increasing until the island was turned over in May, 
1903, when it had reached 200,000. 

The prisons, the squalor and misery of which it is hard to 
exaggerate, were thoroughly cleansed and put upon the basis 
of modern reqviirements. 

The controversy between the church and the government 
over church property was settled by arbitration, and an agree- 
ment satisfactory to both sides was reached. 

The restoration of industry in the island was necessarily 
slow, but in this regard especially did the government and the 
people of the United States show their earnest desire to aid by 
a generous policy the people for whose freedom they had spent 
so much money and so many lives. In pleading for a reduction 
of duty upon Cuban tobacco and sugar, President Roosevelt 
said to Congress : 

"We are a wealthy and powerful nation; Cuba is a young 
Republic, still weak, who owes to us her birth, whose whole fu- 
ture, whose very life, must depend on our attitude toward her. 
I ask that we help her as she struggles upward along the pain- 
ful and difficult road of self-governing independence. I ask 
this aid for her because she is weak, because she needs it, be- 
cause we have already aided her. I ask that open-handed help, 
of a kind which a self-respecting people can accept, be given to 
Cuba, for the very reason that we have given her such help 
in the past. Our soldiers fought to give her freedom ; and for 
three years our representatives, civil and military, have toiled 
unceasingly, facing disease of a peculiarly sinister and fatal 
type with patient and uncomplaining fortitude, to teach her 
how to use aright her new freedom. Never in history has any 
alien country been thus administered with such high integrity 
of purpose, such wise judgment, aVid such single-minded de- 



votion to the country's interests. Now I ask that the Cubans 
be given all possible chance to use to the best advantage the 
freedom of which Americans have such right to be proud and 
for which so many American lives have been sacrificed." 

In accordance with this recommendation a treaty was made 
between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, whereby 
provision was made that products of Cuba coming into the 
United States should receive the benefit of reductions in the 
tariff ranging from 20 to 40 per cent of the regular duties on 
such products. Under the beneficent influence of this favor- 
able discrimination in tariff rates, the prosperity of Cuba in- 
creased so that this year, in spite of an insurrection, to which I 
shall hereafter refer, she will export 1,200,000 tons of sugar, 
the largest in her history, and as large a tobacco crop in matter 
of value as she ever has produced. It should be said, however, 
that the drouth of this year has interfered with sugar planting 
for future crops and that it has much injured the food crops. 
The actual loss in revenue to the United States from the re- 
I duction of tariff rates by the treaty is certainly not less than 
{jl $1^,000,000 a year. 

/ In j\Iay, 1903, the United States turned over to the Repub- 

lic the control of Cuba. During the intervention there had been 
held elections for municipal officers, and also for the members 
of a constitutional convention. At the instance of the United 
States, there was introduced into the constitution what was 
known as the "Piatt Amendment," by which the United States 
was given the right to intervene at any time in order to main- 
tain in Cuba a government of law and order. We thus secured 
the right to act in support of the government which we had 
paid out so much money and so much blood to establish. 
For three years and a half, the Republic of Cuba maintained 
itself with great apparent prosperity, but an abuse by the party 
in control of its executive power in respect to elections brought 
on an insurrection, which the government of the Republic had 
not properly prepared itself to resist or suppress, and the is- 
land was soon in the throes of a war which bade fair to destroy 
for several years its agricultural wealth, and to bring about 
again that awful condition which insurrections against Spain 
had produced. Again the United States intervened ; sent first 



a formidable fleet, and then an army of 5,000 men, secured a 
disbandment of the opposing forces, and estabHshed a provis- 
ional government. This it did under a proclamation which 
promised a restoration of the Republic, as soon as tranquility 
was restored to such an extent as to permit the holding of a 
fair election, and the determination of those persons upon 
whom a government could be properly devolved. 

The Republic had not complied with its constitution in sev- 
eral important respects — it had not made provision for an in- 
dependent judiciary ; it had not provided autonomy in its mu- 
nicipalities, and it had not provided an election law which 
would secure, as required by the constitution, minority repre- 
sentation. A commission under the Provisional Government is 
now drafting an election law, including a law for an electoral 
census, a law making the judiciary independent, a civil service 
law, and a law establishing autonomy in municipalities. It is 
to be hoped that within seven months we may take an electoral 
census, then hold a municipal election, and six months there- 
after a national election, and then after a further interval of 
four months turn over the government to the persons properly 
elected. 

In this intervention the United States has already spent 
about $4,000,000, and will be put to a possible additional ex- 
pense of perhaps $3,000,000 more. The President is given 
authority to receive from the Cuban treasury such sums as the 
condition of that treasury may permit, to reimburse the United 
States for the expense of intervention, but it is quite unlikelv 
that in the various calls that there are upon the Cuban treasury 
for works of improvement and for the bettering of the govern- 
ment, any large part of these funds thus expended will be re- 
imbursed to the United States. 

POKTO RICO. 

The sovereignty of the Island of Porto Rico passed to the 
United States on the i8th of October 1898, and this with the 
full consent of the people of that island. On May i, 1900, 
the Military Government ceased and a Civil Government, in 
accordance with the Act of Congress, was inaugurated, and 
this continues unchanged down to the present. It includes a 



Governor appointed by the President, an Executive Council 
appointed by the President, and an elective National Assembly. 
The legislature is made up of the two houses of the Assembly 
and the Executive Council. Of the civil servants in the Cen- 
tral Government, 343 are Americans and 2,548 are natives. 

Very early in the American history of the island a cyclone 
passed over it, destroying a large part of its coffee culture; 
$200,000 was expended from the emergency fund of the United 
States Treasury to buy rations for those left in distress. Un- 
der the law all the customs are turned into the Treasury of 
Porto Rico for the maintenance of the island government 
while the United States pays the cost of the army, the navy, the 
light-house service, the coast surveys, the harbor improvements, 
the marine hospital support, the post office deficit, the weather 
bureau, and the up-keep of the Agricultural experiment sta- 
tions. Under the last normal year of Spanish rule there was a 
total revenue of $3,664,000, and a total expenditure of $2,869,- 
000, including the central, provincial and municipal receipts 
and expenditures. For the year 1906, the total revenue, pro- 
vincial and municipal, was $4,250,000, and the expenditure 
$4,054,000. 

There is maintained in the Island a Porto Rican regiment, 
paid by the United States, and in addition a constabulary or 
rural police, maintained at the expense of the Island treasury. 
The Island is policed by 700 men and complete tranquility 
reigns. Under the Spanish regime, there was in the Island a 
force of over a thousand rural guards, beside a thousand mu- 
nicipal and urban police, and in addition the regular Spanish 
Army of 4,000 men and several regiments of militia. Ladron- 
ism was by no means rare. 

Down to the last day of Spanish rule, there was not in this 
Island, containing a million people, a single building construct- 
ed for or dedicated to public instruction, and the enrollment of 
pupils was but 21,000. There are to-day in this Island, 97 such 
buildings and the enrollment of pupils has reached the number 
of 130,000. In the last year of Spanish rule there was ex- 
pended $35,000 in gold for public education. Under the present 
government, there is expended a total of $854,000 each year. 

When the Spanish domination ended, there were 172 miles 
of macadamized road. Since the United States took control, 



lO 



there have been constructed 291 miles more, making in all now 
a total of 463 miles of finely planned and admirably constructed 
macadamized roads — as fine roads as there are in the world. 

In the course of the administration of this Island, the medical 
authorities of the Government discovered a disease of anaemia 
which was epidemic and was produced by a microbe called the 
"hook worm." It so much impaired the energy of those who 
suffered from it, and so often led to complete prostration and 
death, that it became necessary to undertake its cure by wide- 
spread Governmental effort. I am glad to say that the effect of 
the Government's treatment has been much to reduce the ex- 
tent and severity of the disease, and that it has been brought 
under control. 

There is complete free trade between Porto Rico and the 
United States, and all custom duties collected in the United 
States on Porto Rican products subsequent to the date of 
Spanish evacuation, amounting to nearly $3,000,000, have been 
refunded to the Island Treasury. The loss to the revenues of 
the United States from the free admission of Porto Rican pro- 
ducts is $15,000,000 annually. In the making of tobacco into 
cigars and cigarettes and of cane into sugar, a considerable 
number of the laboring class find mechanical employment, but 
the wealth of the Island is directly dependent upon the culti- 
vation of the soil, to cane, tobacco, coffee, and fruit, for which 
we in America provide the market. Without our fostering 
benevolence, this Island would be as unhappy and prostrate 
as are some of the neighboring British, French, Dutch and Dan- 
ish Islands. During the last two years of Spanish domination 
the trade balance against the Island was over $12,500,000, 
while the present balance of trade in favor of the Island under 
American control is $2,500,000. The total of exports and im- 
ports has increased from about $25,000,000 under Spain, to 
$44,000,000 under our sovereignty. At the date of the Ameri- 
can occupation, the estimated value of all agricultural land was 
about $30,000,000. Now the appraised value of the real prop- 
erty in the Island reaches $100,000,000. 

PHILIPPINES. 

The fortune or misfortune of the Cuban War carried us to 
the Philippines. The exigencies of the situation brought its 



II 



into such relations with Aguinaklo and the FiUpino troops in 
insurrection against Spain, that when peace came, we could not 
turn the Islands back to Spain. Our international obligation'^, 
and the welfare of the people of the country, prevented us from 
turning the government over to the military forces command- 
ed by Aguinaklo. His attempt to carry on a government had 
been a failure. The failure would have been colossal, had he 
been given more responsibility. The only alternative 
was for us to take over the Islands ourselves and administer 
the government vmtil by gradual training in partial self-gov- 
ernment the people might become so acquainted with the art 
and responsibilities of government that we could ultimately 
leave the Islands. Accordingly we undertook, first, the estab- 
lishment of order in the Islands, and then the maintenance of 
civil government. In the course of this, we had first to dis- 
perse Aguinaldo's army and then to suppress the guerrilla 
warfare which the country was well adapted to encourage and 
facilitate. In establishing order we expended $170,000,000. 
As order was established from place to place, municipal gov- 
ernments were set going with complete autonomy. Provincial 
governments were established with a governing board of three, 
in which two of the officers were appointed, and one, the Gov- 
ernor, was elected. A central government was established, 
with a Civil Governor appointed by the President and eight 
Commissioners, five of them executive officers and American, 
and three of them Filipinos. By changes efifected in the pe- 
riod of six years, a majority of the provincial officers have be- 
come elective, and only one, the provincial treasurer, is ap- 
pointed under the civil service law. In July next an election 
will take place by which an Assembly of seventy representa- 
tives elected by the qualified voters of the Christian provinces, 
will constitute a National Assembly, which will be one of the 
two Houses, the other being the Philippine Commission, to con- 
stitute the Legislature of the Islands. The National Assembly 
elected in July will meet for the first time in October. Thus 
has the promise of our Government, made through President 
McKinley, been kept, of gradually increasing the measure of 
self-government extended to the Filipinos. 

Having established order by use of the military, a Philippine 



12 



Constabulary was created, consisting of some 5,000 men, who 
police the Islands. Considering that the Islands contain a 
population of now more than 7,000,000, this Constabulary force 
is not excessive. The American troops in the Islands number 
about 12,000. There is also a Philippine military force known 
as the Philippine Scouts, 4,000 in number, that are really en- 
listed men of the United States Army. The expenses of the 
United States in the Islands from year to year are about $5,- 
000.000, in the support of the Army over and above what would 
be expended, were there no Philippine Scouts and were the 
Army housed in the United States. 

During the threat of famine in 1902 and 1903, arising from 
the death of most of the draft cattle of the Islands due to 
rhinderpest. Congress voted $3,000,000 to be expended for the 
purpose of relieving sufifering. 

As soon as the Americans reached the Islands, even while war 
was flagrant, schools were established, and now there are read- 
ing, writing and reciting in English in the Philippine Islands, 
one half million of children daily. The unfortunate condi- 
tions under which the use of some seven or eight different lan- 
guages in different Islands and different parts of the same Is- 
land prevented a common medium of communication is grad- 
ually to be remedied. More people speak English than Span- 
ish now, and in a generation the language of the Islands will 
be English unless the present policy is changed. Industrial and 
secondary schools are being established in every province, and 
the Philippine child by manual training is being taught the 
dignity of labor, though in his father's time it had always been 
regarded as a badge of humiliation. 

We have secured the construction of a street car system in 
the city of Manila, thirty-five miles in length, which greatly 
relieves the expense of living in that city, arising from the 
necessary use of cabs in the absence of a street railway. We are 
constructing great waterworks and a comprehensive sewer sys- 
tem for Manila. We have constructed costly harbor works at 
the three great ports of the Islands — Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu. 
We have added many hundred miles to the road mileage of the 
Islands, and have now contracts for the construction of rail- 
ways, so that within a few years, under contracts now in force, 



13 



the mileage of the railways will have been increased to near a 
thousand miles, though it was but 124 when we entered the 
Islands. We have carried the Islands through epidemics of 
plague and of cholera and have stamped them out. Just as we 
entered the Islands, seventy-five per cent of the cattle were de- 
stroyed by rhinderpest. We have discovered a method for sup- 
pressing the rhinderpest, which we have an efficient force of 
civil servants to apply, so that hereafter there is no danger that 
the Islands will be again denuded of cattle from this cause. 

We have introduced a judiciary system which commands the 
confidence of all. It is partly American, partly native. We 
have abolished the Spanish code of civil procedure, which was 
adapted to keep litigants in the vestibule of the court-house 
forever, and have substituted a plain, practical American code. 

We have purchased from the religious orders 400,000 acres of 
the best land in the Islands, the ownership of which by them put 
them in a relation of hostility to 60,000 tenants, who refused to 
recognize their title or pay rent. Had they gone into court and 
sought evictions, another insurrection would have followed. 
The Government has now purchased these lands for $7,000,000, 
and is engaged successfully in selling them out to the tenants 
on easy terms, so that in less than a decade, they will become 
the owners of the lands. 

A currency has been substituted for the old, varying Mexi- 
can dollar, of a Philippine silver peso, maintained by law at 50 
cents gold. In other words, we have established there the gold 
standard. 

We have suppressed Ladronism and disorder throughout 
the Islands, so that agriculture is now being pursued in a 
greater degree than ever before since the Insurrection of 1896. 

Business has been depressed but is gradually recovering. The 
total of imports and exports has increased from $36,000,000 
annual average from 18*90-1894, to an annual average of $60,- 
000.000 during the last four years. 

The Congress of the United States has discriminated in fa- 
vor of the Islands to the extent of permitting its products to 
be introduced into the United States at 25 per cent reduction on 
the Dingley rates. It has been proposed to increase this reduc- 
tion so as to make it 75 per cent on the Dingley rates, and ulti- 



14 

mately, in 1909, to take off the duty altogether on the products 
of the PhiHppine Islands. Such a bill passed the House of 
Representatives; was not voted on in the Senate, but was 
strangled in committee. In the history of this bill for the first 
time is heard a note of selfishness in the policy of the United 
States toward any of her Spanish dependencies. The sugar 
and tobacco interests of the country are afraid that the intro- 
duction of the Philippine products may affect them. Nothing 
could be further from the truth. We import now 1,200,000 
tons of sugar, which comes over the tariff wall, having paid the 
full tariff rates, or at least only 20 per cent less. The total ex- 
portation of sugar from the Philippines in the last three or 
four years has not exceeded 100,000 tons. It never in the his- 
tory of the Islands exceeded 265,000 tons. The introduction, 
therefore, of Philippine sugar into the United States, assuming 
that it might rise to 300,000 tons, would still leave to be 
brought over the tariff wall 900,000 tons, and could not, there- 
fore, in any degree affect the price of sugar in this market. If 
the price of sugar is not affected, then the sugar growers and 
manufacturers of this country must also remain unaffected. 
Figures with respect to tobacco and cigars are equally convinc- 
ing that the timidity of the tobacco interests of this country in 
respect to the Philippine tariff bill, is also unjustified. On the 
other hand, the opportunity to come into the markets of the 
United States would doubtless greatly benefit the business in- 
terests of the Islands by a gradual improvement in the business 
tone, and we might expect ultimately the same prosperity that I 
have described already as conferred upon Porto Rico by the 
generosity of the United States in opening its markets to the 
people of that Island. I have no doubt that in the future jus- 
tice will be done in the matter of the Philippines. 

It may be objected that the $170,000,000 or more expended by 
the United States in suppressing the insurrection in the Philip- 
pines was not for the benefit of the Filipino people, resulting as 
it did in the death of many. This is a narrow view. No money 
or blood was ever spent more directly for the benefit of a 
people than this. The chaos which would have reigned and 
the bloody civil dissensions that would have followed, had we 
withdrawn from the Islands, and left them to their fate, under 



Aguinaldo and his generals, would have continued unabated 
for a decade, and the consequent prostrate condition of agricul- 
ture could hardly be overstated. The war was deplorable but 
no other possible alternative was open to us in the discharge of 
our duty as a nation. 

Only two laws can be said to have been enacted with a view 
to the selfish protection of American interests, one is the act 
by which the coastwise trade law will apply to the traffic direct- 
ly between the United States and the Philippines. By amend- 
ment from time to time, however, its application has been post- 
poned, and we may hope that these amendments will continue. 
The other is a law which discriminates in favor of goods ex- 
ported directly to American ports by granting a rebate of Is- 
land export duties attaching to such goods. It has reduced in a 
small amount the income of the Island to help American trade. 

The Assem.bly about to meet will doubtless be composed of 
men, a majority of whom will declare in favor of immediate 
independence. This is the natural result, because of the argu- 
ment that appeals to the self-pride of the voters that they are 
entirely fit for complete self-government. It is quite possible 
that m.uch of the time of the Assembly, in its first session, will 
be taken up in perfecting resolutions of this kind. I hope, 
however, that after having given vent to their feelings upon 
this subject and having presented a respectful petition to Con- 
gress thereon, they may be induced to appreciate that the func- 
tion of a National Assembly is to legislate for the benefit of the 
country and to come down to legislative action on humdrum 
subjects that do not necessarily involve eloquence and imagina- 
tion but do involve hard work and patriotic eftort and make for 
the betterment of the Islands. 

The Philippine Islands have been treated with less gener- 
osity than either Cuba or Porto Rico, but still a great deal has 
been done by the United States for the Philippines and at a 
very heavy expense. 

The statistics will show that in the case of each of the Is- 
land governments, the revenues have been largely augmented 
under American auspices, and also that the total of imports and 
exports has been materially increased. But the same is true of 
the expenditures. The x\mericans have given a more expensive 



i6 



government because they have insisted on doing more in edu- 
cation, in pubHc improvements and in sanitation. It is easy for 
a government to be economical if it does not do anything. 

One sometimes hears our character as benefactors to these 
Spanish Islands questioned on the ground that the benefits 
conferred have been paid for by us out of the taxes collected 
in the Islands, and therefore out of money belonging to our 
wards. I think I have shown by what has been said that im- 
mense sums have been paid directly out of the Treasury of the 
United States to aid them and that very large sums whicn 
would be annually paid into the United States Treasury are di- 
verted therefrom by our policy toward these Islands. But 
more than this, even with respect to those benefits paid for out 
of the revenues of the Islands, are not the work of administra- 
tion and the responsibility and care and judgment necessary to 
organize and maintain a government and devise the ways and 
means to better the conditions of a people to be regarded as 
altruistic if only the good of the people is sought? 

And now what has the United States received in return for 
all her efforts, for all her expenditure, and all her responsibili- 
ties? Let us look at her trade with the Islands. In the fiscal 
year 1895, the last normal year of Spanish occupation, the im- 
ports into the United States from Cuba were $52,000,000 ; from 
Porto Rico, $3,000,000; and from the Philippine Islands, $5,- 
000,000. In the fiscal year 1906, the imports into the United 
States from Cuba were $85,000,000; from Porto Rico, $19,000,- 
000; and from the Philippine Islands, $12,000,000. The ex- 
ports from the United States to Cuba in the fiscal year 1895, 
were $12,500,000; to Porto Rico, $3,000,000; and to the Phil- 
ippine Islands, $120,000. For the fiscal year 1906, the exports 
from the United States into Cuba were about $48,000,000 ; into 
Porto Rico, $19,000,000; and into the Philippine Islands, $5,- 
500,000. This shows a very considerable increase in the Cuban 
trade, a proportionate increase in the Porto Rican trade, but a 
smaller increase, though a considerable one, in the Philippine 
trade. In other words, the total trade with Cuba has increased 
from $65,000,000 to $130,000,000; with Porto Rico from $6,- 
000,000 to $38,000,000 ; and with the Philippine Islands from 
$5,000,000 to $18,000,000, or a total increase in business done 



17 

with these three islands of $110,000,000. While this shows a 
considerable increase, the profit therefrom is by no means equal 
to the great outlay I have set forth. I am sure that if the same 
liberal policy is continued and if the Philippine tariff bill of 
the last session is put into effect in the course of the next two 
or three years, that a decade, or certainly twenty-five years, will 
show an increase in business' that will be more commensurate 
with the expenditure. But that increase will occur only if we 
continue the same altruistic spirit in dealing with these islands, 
and give them every opportunity and aid to expand their own 
business and increase their own prosperous condition. In the 
meantime, and down to the present date, the outgo for the bene- 
fit of these islands has been enormous, while the income received 
by the people of the United States from them has been com- 
paratively small. 

If, then, we have not had material recompense, have we had 
it in the continuing gratitude of the people whom we have 
aided? There have been many expressions at various times 
showing that at such times, a feeling of gratitude existed, but 
he who would measure his altruism by the good will and sin- 
cere thankfulness of those whom he aids, will not persist in 
good works. There are many reasons why we need not ex- 
pect a continued feeling of gratitude from the peoples we have 
benefitted. It is impossible always to secure American officials 
who are properly imbued with the spirit of sympathy for the 
natives that is essential to prevent race friction. We strive, of 
course, to go as little counter to the customs of the people as 
possible, but to secure needed reforms, it is necessary some- 
times to enforce laws that are not popular. Thus sanitary regu- 
lations needed to secure good health are irksome to such a 
people. They do not see the use of such severity. Again, to 
carry on a government we must employ many Americans in the 
service, and we must, in order to secure them, pay them at a 
higher rate than the natives. Offices are much sought after by 
the natives and the greater pay and discrimination in favor of 
the Americans are sure to engender dissatisfaction. W^e have 
tried to substitute natives for Americans as rapidly as possible, 
but we must retain some Americans for guidance. Then the 
native newspapers avail themselves of the freedom of the 



i8 



press and abuse the privilege by every kind of unfair statement 
to stir up native prejudice against the government, and so 
against the Americans. This is not decreased by the 
hostile attitude of unthinking and unpatriotic American 
business men against the natives. Finally the char- 
acter of the benefits we have conferred on these Spanish- 
speaking peoples is such as necessarily to imply our sense 
of greater capacity for self-government and our belief 
that we represent a higher civilization. This in itself soon 
rankles in the bosom of the native and dries up the flower of 
gratitude. It is natural that it should be so. We cannot help 
it. It is inseparable from the task we undertake. Our reward 
must be in the pleasure of pushing the cause of civilization and 
in increasing the opportunity for progress to those less for- 
tunate than ourselves in their environment, and not in their 
gratitude. 

I have not touched upon and do not intend to discuss, for 
lack of time, what our future policy toward these three peoples 
must be. The problems to be presented are difficult and need a 
clear and calm judgment and a generous altruistic spirit for 
their satisfactory solution. Neither will be wanting, I am sure. 
Our experience in the three countries of Cuba, Porto Rico, 
and the Philippines has many points in common, and the chief 
common feature has been the desire on the part of the Ameri- 
can people, represented by the American Congress, and the 
American Executive, to stimulate business, to elevate and edu- 
cate the people, to maintain and preserve order, to introduce in- 
ternal improvements of all sorts into the islands, to build roads 
and bridges and harbors, and gradually to enlarge as far as pos- 
sible the control which the natives shall have over their own 
local government. There have been times when abuses have 
crept into the administration of the Islands on the part of some 
of the civil and military servants of the United States, but the 
record of the nine years since the beginning of the Spanish 
War, looked at from an impartial standpoint is, on the whole, 
an unblemished record of generous, earnest effort to uplift 
these people, to help them on the way to self-government, and 
to teach them a higher and a better civilization. It is a record I 
confidently submit will always redound in the coming century 



/be Released for the Morning Papers of May 31, 1907. 

Address of William H. Taft, Secretary of War, Delivered 
at the Millers' Convention in St. Louis, Mo., May 
30, 1907. 

Gentlemen of the Mileers' Convention: 

I esteem it a privilege and an honor to address this large, in- 
fluential and representative body. To-day is Memorial Day 
and therefore instead of discussing a subject in which you are 
interested as millers, I prefer to talk to you as citizens and 
patriots, and have ventured to take as the subject of my 
remarks, "Recent Instances of our National Altruism." 

But first let me speak of the day. It is a beautiful custom to 
decorate the graves of those who died in war for their country. 
It is well for us to be brought to a contemplation of those crises 
in our history in which countrymen of ours numbered by the 
hundreds of thousands, solely from a sense of duty parted with 
all that the nation might live. "Greater love hath no man than 
this that a man lay down his life for his friends." As one 
walks through the beautiful alleys and avenues of the "city of 
the dead," which lies opposite to Washington, in Arlington, and 
contemplates the resting place of the unknown dead, one's heart 
rises in his throat, the tears come to his eyes, and his bosom 
thrills with ecstatic elevation at the thought of the heroism 
and sacrifice of those who, without a murmur and without hope 
of personal credit or glory, ga.\'z up all to maintain a sacred 
cause. We have now come to the period of fraternal feeling 
when we all can also respect the constancy and bravery of those 
who wore the gray through the awful struggle. They defend- 
ed the right as they saw it. It was a distinguishing char- 
acteristic of our Civil War that both sides, from the generals 
to the humblest privates, were actuated by real love of the cause 
they were prepared to die for, and now, as we look back on 
it, we can admire Grant's magnanimity and considera- 
tion for his great foe and Lee's patriotic self-restraint in 
declining after defeat to gratify a false pride and carry 



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19 

to the high credit of the people of the United States as a gen- 
erous civiHzing nation charged by the accident of war with the 
responsibihties of guardianship of a less fortunate people and 
discharging that God-given responsibility in accordance with 
the highest ideals of the brotherhood of man. 



LIBRftRY OF ':ONGRESS 



017 297 442 9 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



017 297 442 9 



